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A Look At The Common Cloud Adoption Challenges Today

March 27, 2017November 7, 2017

Today, cloud adoption is no longer just another way to reduce IT costs. It has become more about interacting directly with customers in real time, transforming businesses, helping organizations gain a competitive advantage, and more. With that in mind, cloud adoption challenges come in all shapes, sizes and varieties, which greatly depend on your organization. While there isn’t a definitive list of challenges, here’s a quick look at the common challenges and concerns people often hear in the industry.

Integration Challenges

Although facilitating IT integration with an existing infrastructure can be a challenging task, it is needed to maximize the value of cloud services. Hence, it needs to be addressed promptly. For many in-house IT departments, this challenge usually exists in within their organizations in the form of Bring-Your-Own-Device and shadow IT. Moving forward, you should keep in mind that a well-integrated environment has more to deliver than introducing discreet cloud services to your company. With that in mind, it is highly recommended that you work with a reputable IT service provider to develop a cohesive strategy that’s also aided by a governance strategy; first at the corporate level and then within IT.

Transparency Challenges

Today, “trust me” is not something you want to hear from an IT service provider when dealing with security and compliance (i.e. competitively sensitive operational information or trade secrets). They should be open about their IT methods and processes for delivering on its service-level agreement. If you get these kinds of claims, try responding with “show me.”

Control Challenges

Organizational data control is something that’s tough to let go during cloud adoption. While these things are not always a matter of security, some business owners tend to experience uneasiness when they entrust a third party to take care of the data and services which have been moved to the cloud. Remember, when you move a chunk of operational responsibility to competent cloud providers, you will be able to take on other revenue-generating projects and make greater business contributions.

Reliability and Availability Challenges

Reliability and availability are common service provider issues. There is no doubt that delivering on a stringent SLA needs a commitment to best practices, 24/7/365 staffing comprising experienced technicians, thoroughly redundant architecture as well as top-flight network products, software, and hardware.

Performance and Cost Challenges

It is true that some businesses can save on system maintenance, management, and acquisitions, but they may have to invest more on bandwidth. For smaller applications, this would not be much of an issue, but the cost can be high for data-intensive applications. Therefore, receiving and delivering complex and intensive over a network needs sufficient bandwidth to mitigate latency issues and application timeouts.

IT Expertise, Knowledge, and Skill Challenges

Things are different in the cloud, and some IT organizations may not have the necessary resources or tools to manage, monitor, or implement cloud solutions. It may be necessary to hire staff with new skills and/or educate them about new processes and tool sets. This becomes increasingly important when more of your applications and operations move to the cloud over time. It is imperative that you select the right IT service provider who can help ease the transition and fill gaps as you go.